Blog #8 Annie's Song

You fill up my senses like a night in a forest,
Like the mountains in springtime,
Like a walk in the rain, like a storm in the desert,
Like a sleepy blue ocean.
You fill up my senses, come fill me again.

Come let me love you, let me give my life to you,
Let me drown in your laughter, let me die in your arms.
Let me lay down beside you, let me always be with you
Come let me love you, come love me again.

Let me give my life to you,
Come let me love you, come love me again.

You fill up my senses like a night in a forest,
Like the mountains in springtime,
Like a walk in the rain, like a storm in the desert,
Like a sleepy blue ocean.
You fill up my senses, come fill me again.

I chose to analyze the melodic 70s pop song Annie's Song by John Denver. Number one, I have always liked it and number two, I sang this to a lovely young lady one night while out with some friends and, well, I proposed soon thereafter. In analyzing this song it is far more than a simple pop love song. He's not stating that he wants to hold her hand; she doesn't drive him crazy in some hormonal rush; she fills his senses! More than fresh coffee and bacon smells incredible first thing in the morning, she fills him like the mountains in springtime, like a night in a forest (probably before he saw The Blair With Project). According to Wikipedia, he wrote this song in about ten minutes after skiing a difficult run and was filled with inspiration, looking at the nature around him. He thought of his wife and quickly wrote a number one hit. Well, the couple divorced eight years later, but the song lives on.

Does it reflect the assumptions in Remix? You bet it does! His love for Annie, to have written these words, had to be eternal, an epic, Romeo and Juliet love. Her very being fills his mind and soul. Is sexual love in here somewhere? Probably, but higher than this is the selfless, sacrificial love in the lines "let me give my life to you" and "let me die in your arms". And there is chemistry, tons of it. This isn't some coffee house floozy, this is John's wife (for the next eight years anyway). Any casual observer knows that John loved nature, was vocal in environmental causes. So this great passion was wrapped around his relationship with his wife and he immersed himself in her like he did "a walk in the rain". I believe he is saying that Annie was more than his soul mate, she was his soul, she was his world, his mountains, his ocean, his forest and he was shouting to her from across time, "come let me love you".

Of course the song assumes love is eternal and their love is the rock on which their world is built. Their love can conquer anything! But, in my opinion, that is the greatness of the song. Okay, they didn't last forever, but they could have. And along comes the mushy, romantic, poet lover me one night and bellows the song out to a girl I had known for maybe two weeks and our relationship is sealed forever in the stars. I'll buy it! All of the cheese and the strings and the harmonies and the imagery, the good and the bad, make this a perfect love song. Annie's Song is not an essay like the two gay men watching the movie, one sentimental, the other bored. It is a state of mind; its own Rocky Mountain High if you will. Is pecan pie healthy? Is it recommended by the American Journal of Medicine for long life? Will it save the planet and heal the oceans? Or is it just a mouthful of heaven, and the memory of its wonderful taste lingers on, so that when you think of it days later, you smile?